DESIGN: Clothing boutique in posh New York neighborhood employs hand-made glass for unique ambiance

These full-size glass mannequins were individually blown by Edison Zapata and Romina Gonzales for the Pamela Gonzales fashion boutique opening tomorrow night in New York’s SoHo neighborhood. photo: edison zapata

Tomorrow evening, across from the swank SoHo Grand Hotel in Manhattan, the doors of the Pamela Gonzales boutique will open to press and invited guests. The clothing, handmade in Pamela’s native Peru, is defined by attention to detail and richly textured handworked fabrics that reveal the quality of their silk, wool, and high-grade cotton materials. Pamela’s sister, Romina, an art student at New York University, was recruited for the interior of the 1,500-square-foot boutique, which she approached as she would an art gallery space. In an effort to harmonize the interior fittings with the clothing that would be displayed inside, Romina chose to employ handmade glass components for everything from the racks and hangars, to the lighting fixtures, to the mannequins that display the clothing.

Light passing through the handmade wrinkled lighting globe casts shadows that evoke wrinkled textiles as well as accentuate the unique one-off qualities of the individually worked object. photo: romina gonzales

“What interest me about glass personally is that it is such a common everyday material, we take it for granted,” Romina told the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet. “In the interior of the boutique, with elements such as wrinkled lighting globes like fabric, handmade hangars that are hotworked at the furnace, or the blown two-part mannequins, we were looking to reference the handmade quality of the clothing, but also push the limits of what glassblowing can do. We tried to capture some of that energy in elements like cane that was shaped in the air when hot by a team of three or four people, which we suspended from the ceiling like giant threads which cast interesting shadows across the walls of the store.”

Artist Edison Zapata, who connected with Romina at Brooklyn Glass, where she took glassblowing lessons from him, says that the project was unique for allowing for experimentation and unpredictable outcomes in the studio, something rare for glassblowing these days. “As we were really pushing the limits and trying new things, there were people watching us in the studio who had little faith in the outcome,” says Zapata, who says that glassblowing can be so expensive, many practitioners don’t allow themselves to venture past the predictable outcomes. But when the final results of the mannequin figures were realized, each of the two halves weighing over 25 pounds, the critics in the hotshop became converts, and supported the project.

A detail of the hand-blown lighting globe designed to mimic the fall of draped fabric and cast complex shadows. photo: edison zapata

Romina says that it was Edison’s openness to experimentation that made her choose him to collaborate on her project. “I like that he can be open and free to experiment and try new things with glass, and to push his comfort limit,” she says. “I feel a lot of glassblowers are really good at what they do but afraid of trying things where they might make a mistake.”

In addition to the clothing displays, where other designers as well as her sister will showcase their latest collections, there is a curated art gallery within the boutique where an exhibition of work by Alan Iwamura, Deborah Czeresko, Anders Rydsterdt, and a collaborative project by Edison and Romina will be displayed.

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